Oni and the Spirits
An Excerpt from The Echo of Ucayali by Alexandra Sheren
My journey with the Shipibo-Conibo shamans began more than a decade ago. For the past two years, I have lived in the Amazon jungle as an apprentice. This article is an excerpt from my book The Echo of Ucayali, a first-person narrative that is both an anthropological journey into the world of Amazonian shamans and a mystical non-fiction adventure based on real events. In this passage, I explore in detail the world of the plant spirits that dwell in the selva and the ways in which the Shipibo tradition engages with them—both in ceremonies and through shamanic diets, including the great spirit of the selva, Oni, as the Shipibo call Ayahuasca.
The world of selva spirits can be imagined as a closed system, resembling, in many ways, a set of Tarot cards or the Elder Futhark runes. Practitioners working within those systems tend to perceive the world through the language of their symbols—where, at any given time, a person channels the energy of a particula…
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